What I'm Working On Wednesday

What am I working on?  LOTS.  Possibly too much.  I'm done Grandma's Cabin.  Carol-Lynne came to pick it up last night.  It looks so nice in that shadow box.  It sits a couple inches behind the glass.  Looking into it is like looking into a memory.  The person she is gifting it to is soon to turn 94!  WOW.  I know you've seen this piece before, but now it's really done and gone.

quite possibly the most detail i've ever done

Next up... I'll call it "Mandy's Magical Tree Quilt".  It's a commission that came my way.  It will be made almost entirely from the fabric of a mother's baby slings and cloth carriers that she wore her babies in.  Here's the fabrics...

magical indeed, for i do not see tree parts here.  : )

Mandy sees a tree.  I met with her recently and we laid out all the fabrics in a way that matches her vision of it.  I get it now!  It's planned to be very colorful and very whimsical.  And it will deserve a lot of curly quilting.  I am looking forward to this one very much!!  She wants SPARKLE - and she'll get it!  : )

This is another bag sent to me.  It's a quilt commissioned from Jesica, a long-distance friend of mine.  Her Grandmother passed away last year and these are the fabrics she has from her.  Her grandmother was VERY significant in Jesica's life, so this is a bag full of love and memories.  She wants a big white quilt with little bits of color all over the top.

waiting for the cutting table...  lots of bold colors!

Sweet Jessica!  She included a BIG FAT sampler book for me to because she knows I make postcards  Awesome!  THANK YOU!  No 2 alike...

200 or so postcards just waiting to be made!

Speaking of which, I put 3 new swaps up at PostCardCottage (a yahoo group I adopted - go join!).  So I'm signing up for a swap and need to make 3 postcards for that.

And then there is the preschool fundraiser quilt.  

I have less than a week to finish it.  

UGH! 
It's
so
hard! 
lol  

I had no strategy for it.  I had the children in my daughter's class each design a block with glue sticks and fabric scraps I brought in.  I took them all home to turn it into a quilt.  The it will be silent-auctioned amongst the parents on the 6th for the St. Nikolas Day party.  The top is nearly done, and can you believe it!?  It's ALL APPLIQUE!  That is something I swore I would never ever do.  (Never say never ever.)   Here are a whole whack of photos from this project.

cleaning up the connecting threads...

the children together and their homes below.  ok, i like it.

When big projects overwhelm me, I am drawn to fine detailed tasks.  I took a well deserved break from that one, and fiddled around with some prep for a fibre art piece (that one floating around in my head...).  My daughter and I made some cloth beads for the first time!  Arwen made red ones.  I made white.  My white ones are inspired by ice and winter and the great north.  They are PERFECT for my Arctic Art.

 

* hand-rolled beads of cloth, sheer, and irridescent threads *

Lastly, a stitching magazine has asked to feature me & my work!  H*!y C^@p!  That caused another moment of stunned - crying - honored - excited.  I texted my husband and told him I was going to "barf butterflies".  lol  How else do I explain it?  How thrilling!!  However, it also means another pressing deadline and I'm just not sure I'm up to it right at this moment.  It's all moving sooo fast.  So I have chosen to have this on the list for next year.  No rush.  I'll be doing this for a long time...  I do not plan on changing careers anytime soon.

surprised how this has become full time work!
~Monika

thanks to Lee for organizing WIP Wednesday!  ; )
see others' here:
Lee's WIP Wednesday Link Up @ Freshly Pieced

Gingerbread Cookies

No, I'm not baking.  I'm quilting.  I'm working on the St. Nikolas quilt today.  So far so good.  I decided not use the paper pieced gnomes by Sonja Callaghan only because I was too chicken to try it.  So I stuck with the applique theme and made gingerbread-cookie-cutter kids!

 

I made ten of them, one for each child.  I'm putting them in a circle on the quilt with names embroidered on each.  But I cannot show you yet!  Here's all you get...

It's not sewn together in this photo.  It's just stuck to the design wall.  I've rearranged it a dozen times!  I think I know what I'm doing now.  : )  So I squared all the blocks up, which helped to centre some of them a bit better.  I use tape on my rulers as a guide now ALWAYS when doing repetitive cutting - ever since accidentally slicing fabric too small too many times. 

This is a very busy quilt, but it has a pretty christmas feel to it.  I think the kids will love it.  Arwen is a bit freaked out.  She said, "you mean you are SELLING THIS!!???".  She says that about everything I make.  Needless to say, she owns more quilts than anyone in this family!  lol

back to work...

see ya tomorrow!

~Monika

Quilting Again

I spent last night shoveling.  My kids were sledding in our back yard until ten pm!  We spent the morning sledding again.  There's so much snow and it's so mild out.  FUN!  I love days like these.  Now we are back at home and sipping hot chocolate.  I made a quick trip to Periwinkle Quilting to grab more of this awesome fabric.

And now I'm slicing up strips for the preschool quilt.  My plan was to make a picnic blanket with this.  But it goes so well with the blocks that the kids made.  This is how I quilt:  I chop up things and figure out what I'm doing later.  It's terrible.  Most times it works.  lol  We'll see.  I have ideas but no real vision for this quilt. 

One thing I did do was order the EQ software (Electric Quilt).  !!!  I'm actually buying an older version because I am extremely frugal.  ; )  I've seen demonstrations and think it looks really great.  If I love it, I'll upgrade when the next version comes out.  I've heard the newest version (EQ7) actually will spit out fabric requirements for you if you create a quilt in its program!  Is that true?  I'd love to hear from anyone who uses EQ.  Thanks in advance!

~Monika